Latest Update (7/5/2011): I'm back, everyone! I wonder if anybody still reads guides... anyways, I've updated this guide to better reflect current prices in the FM.

Merchanting is the process of getting things in Maplestory and selling them for a profit. It's the best way to get rich in the game.

When I see a really, really, really long guide on Basilmarket, I'm like... 'damn.' Often, it's so long that many people don't even bother reading it. So now I've written my third meso-making guide. And this time, it's extra simple. I've condensed my merchanting knowledge so that you only have to read the bolded parts (including headers). However, if you decide to only read the bolded parts, some guesswork will be involved while performing a lot of the steps in this guide.

Note: Due to various reasons, the method described this guide will only work in GMS. And since prices of items vary from server to server, feel free to experiment with prices

You need money to make money. Nobody literally starts merchanting from zero mesos; people need at least a couple hundred thousand mesos to begin with. I personally recommend you have at least 1 million mesos and a store (we'll discuss that in Step 2). How to get that money:

Do the quest [url=http://global.hidden-street.net/quest/masteria/subanis-legacy]Subani's Legacy[/url]. It's the easiest quest in Maplestory to give a good reward EVERY time. This quest will give you a glove attack 60% scroll, worth at least a couple million mesos on Basilmarket (depending on the inflation).

If you find that getting a few million mesos from a glove attack scroll isn't enough, then just kill some more monsters. Though you're probably not going to be getting a billion mesos from everyday training, things add up. The monsters you kill will drop something good eventually. And once you've gotten a reasonable large collection of dropped items, you can sell them off in your store (Step 2)!

You need a store to sell thing efficiently at a reasonable profit. Merchanting from Basilmarket takes too long and doesn't guarantee profits. Selling things in the FM Entrance takes forever if you want to get a good price (though it's faster than Basilmarket). In a store, you can sell things for noticeably more than Basilmarket. Usually, the prices are 10-50% higher. The more expensive an item is, the lower the percentage becomes. For example, an item worth 1 million mesos on Basilmarket can be sold for 1.5 million in a store, but an item worth 100 million mesos on Basilmarket can only be sold for 110 million mesos in a store.

The best way to buy a store is to buy a NX cash card from your local drug store/7-11. But if your parents won't let you spend $10 on virtual money, you have two options:

Get free basilmarket.com/funcNX from Nexon. On their official website, Nexon offers [url=http://www.nexon.net/nx/earn-frebasilmarket.com/funce-nx/#/game-coins/]free basilmarket.com/func NX credit[/url] if you complete certain offers (i.e. surveys, promotions, etc.) provided by rewards sites. The amount of NX rewarded varies, but you should be able to get enough NX for a store within 30 minutes. You should use a junk email account and fake personal information when completing the offer. Unfortunately, this method doesn't really work outside of the U.S.

Sell things in the MTS. The meso:NX conversion ratio varies, but you'll probably have to sell at least 20 million mesos worth of items for a store. If the inflation is really bad, you might have to sell as much as 50 million mesos worth of items. It's usually more effective just to complete Nexon's "special offers".

You should aim to open a store in the rooms of the Channel 1 FM. The lower the number of the room you're in, the better. In more crowded servers, try to avoid opening shop in the bottom row (especially FM 1-3), since merchanting guilds tend to harass casual merchants there. Speed helps newbies get good store spots, so copy-paste your store title and boost your speed with speed equips, speed potions, and skills like Haste when looking. If you can't find a spot on your first try, don't give up. Just come back a few minutes later and try again.

A lot of rich people are willing to buy common items from stores for greatly inflated prices instead of actually getting the stuff themselves, simply because it's more convenient. Getting these things costs little money and reselling them in your store is a good way to start merchanting. What you should buy and resell:

Make Work Gloves and resell them for 500,000+ mesos each in your store. To make a Work Glove, you need to give 15 leathers and 1k (a "k" equals 1000) to 'JM From tha Streetz' in Kerning City. You can buy leathers for 5-10k mesos each by spamming 'B>Leathers' in Henesys, Kerning City, and other places with a lot of newbies. However, this may not always work. An alternative method is to kill monsters that drop leathers. Many rich players like to scroll work gloves, so they'll pay boatloads for a unscrolled Work Glove.

Buy bathrobes from the Showa Bathhouse and resell them for 200k+ each in your store. This is probably the easiest method available, if you're above level 50, or you have a skill such as Dark Sight (which makes you unhittable by monsters). Otherwise, you'll risk dying on the trip to Showa. The Bathrobes cost 30k each at the Showa Bathhouse, so assuming you have an empty equipment inventory, you can 1-2 million mesos per run.

You can also try alternatives, such as reselling Summoning Rocks and All-cure Potions from Alcaster of El Nath, or Icicles and All-cure Potions from Mo of the Phantom Forest. However, both of these options involve doing a long series of pre-quests, which may not be worth the effort.

You need to notice deals when you see them. Knowing the specific price of every item isn't necessary; all you need to remember is the general price range of popular items. For example, you don't need to know that a GFA (scroll for glove for attack) is worth exactly 8 million mesos in the FM. You just need to be able to recognize that a GFA being sold for 6 million mesos is a good deal.

If you're having problems remembering prices, merchant in Windowed Mode and keep your browser open at all times. This way, you can check Basilmarket any time you need help. Basilmarket is a great way to find out what prices you should be buying and selling at. However, don't check Basilmarket while in the middle of a trade- check beforehand.

If you can't/don't want to always be checking Basilmarket, you can write down a list of prices of important items on a piece of paper and refer to that instead. This is faster than checking Basilmarket, so it's good for making quick decisions in the FM. However, it requires a lot of updating, since inflation and deflation can totally screw up prices in less than a week. And, of course, you won't be able to cover every item.

[Name=5]##Step 5: Buy and sell stuff from other players
Once you get a comfortable amount of money, practice normal merchanting. Normal merchanting involves buying items from other players for low prices and selling them for higher prices in your store. Or, to put it simply, buy low and sell high.

Most guides recommend spamming 'B>Scrolls' in the FM Entrance, but I can assure you, spamming is total bullcrap. Newbie merchants can no longer compete with professional spammers, who use bots to spam on multiple accounts at a time. Instead, you should look for alternative methods of finding deals. You can:

Browse through stores in the FM. Though most stores in the FM sell things overpriced, every once in a while, you will pass buy a store that sells things at a reasonable price. It won't necessarily be a cheap price, but that doesn't matter; an average price on Basilmarket is a low price in the FM. For example, if the Basil price of a GFA is 8 million mesos and you see a store in the FM selling one for that much, then it's a good deal because you can sell it in your store for more.

The best FM rooms to search are usually on the 3rd, 4th, and sometimes 2nd row of the Channel 1 FM entrance. The bottom row is almost always overpriced, unless you're playing in a very new Maplestory world.

Hang around the FM entrance and wait for deals. Most good deals come from you trading other people, rather than having other people trade you. The moment you see someone in the FM Entrance selling an item, trade him and ask him to offer his price. It's ideal that he offers first, to see how much room you have to negotiate. If he offers a slightly too-high price, try convincing him to lower it to the Basilmarket price (at most). If he offers a total ripoff price, well, it's still worth a shot to try to haggle it down. If he offers a very good price, then it's your call whether you want to risk haggling.

If you have to offer, try offering a moderately low price (maybe half or two-thirds Basilmarket price). Don't worry about rejection. You'll get better over time. Besides, it's the internet. Who cares?

Pop that champagne. Well, you're probably not old enough to drink in the United States.

Anyways, that's basically it. There's no big secret to becoming a merchant; all it requires is time and hard work (sort of). There are more ways to make money and many other tricks to learn, but once you get the hang of Step 5, you've pretty much learned the basic form of merchanting. Just lather, rinse, and repeat.

Merchanting requires PRACTICE. Don't be down on yourself when you only make 1-2 million mesos in an hour. You'll get better once you get more practice. You're not going to make 50 million mesos in an hour on your first try. In fact, the only reason the 'pro' merchants can make so much money is because they're already made a crapload of money before. It's a hell of a lot easier to make 50 million mesos when you have one billion mesos to invest. With that much money, you barely even need a 5% profit margin to make 99% of Basilmarket jealous.

Like I said earlier, this is a SIMPLE guide. I'm not going to cover every single merchanting tip or method out there. This guide just highlights what I think is the best way to become a merchant in Maplestory. If you have any constructive criticism or helpful advice, feel free to post. By the way, flaming is not constructive.